Hurricane season reminder: have a “land line”

Last year we reminded you of an essential hurricane-season item you might not think about: a corded phone. Here’s what we wrote:

Recently, this writer bought an inexpensive object that might seem as obsolete as an 8-track player but which will be an absolute necessity to you the next time severe weather knocks out your power: an old-fashion corded telephone. The kind that plugs right into the wall phone jack.

Here’s why:

First of all, in a storm, cell phone towers can be knocked down, or otherwise damaged, or lose their power, or any and all of the above, and you’ll be without service. (One other tip: after a disaster, when cell service is limited, be courteous and text rather than call, as cell capacity will be heavily taxed.) The cell companies now have “COWs,” cell-on-wheels vehicles, which they drive into affected areas. But they can’t always get there right away.

And of course with no power, you can’t charge your cell phone. You can charge it from your car if needed, but of course for only so long before you add to your misery with a dead car battery.

Secondly, if your house phone uses cordless handsets, and the power goes out, those sets won’t work. At all. A corded phone needs only a little “juice” and gets it from the current in the telephone lines, so it still will work even when the power is out.

You can buy one of these corded phones, used, on Internet auction sites; we paid $4.90 for the beauty shown here. We also saw a new one at a department store’s web page for as little as $9.

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Someone needs to educate this moron 8d as to what freedom of speech is.

Better yet get him to go down to the courthouse and stand in the middle of Colbaths courtroom and tell the judge he is a friggin idiot. Then explain to the judge how he can't do anything about it because of your "Freedom of speech"

If the judge is in a good mood he may give him the medical help he needs if in a bad mood a long vacation looking up freedom of speech in the prison library!

yup, says the phone repair man. The company signs our check, I work for the customer, it's the customers money that pays me.

Try working 12 hours days, 13 day work weeks for months on end to restore the service being lambasted in this thread after major storms. All because homeowners/municipalities refuse to take care of their landscaping, allowing their bit of paradise to encroach on the utility easements around their house.

We do our best to walk around the trash and dog droppings in your yards, trying to gain access to facilities that have dilapidated sheds, overegrown bushes and tress, and junk collecting mosquitos right were we need to work. Because " I don't want to see the wires".

I would ask anyone who has had a phone line for the last 10-50 years anywhere they lived, tell me how many times they lost service during normal weather during that time. Then compare to any other utility or electronic/electric device over the same time period. I know the track record is pretty good, not perfect, but pretty good.

BTW, if you would look closely at a POTS phone bill, add up the costs of the taxes and fees imposed on all of us on those bills. POTS is still the most reliable, efficient and least expensive way to communicate.

Oh, sure! I get mail all the time from the minions of AT&T about the great prices for landlines and internet service but when you contact them, they say that service is not available in your area. And I have had an AT&T telephone sitting around for years waiting to be able to get a connection. Perhaps the State of Florida should take action to force AT&T to serve the general public instead of just metro areas.

I promise you the first time you need that phone line in a 911 emergency it will be a small price to pay. A land based POTS line works perfectly in the 911 system. If you call 911 from home you dont have to speak in order for the address to appear at the PSAP ( public safety access point, your local pd/fire dept.) The will always attemp to call back and/or dispatch on a hangup or disconnect. Ask your grandparents if they feel confident using a cellphone for 911

As an employee of a telephone company who worked during Francis, Jean and Wilma I can say first hard how we in palm beach county restore phone service. We use the "sweep" method. We send teams out into mapped out areas to attempt to reattach all service drops from the pole to the customers house. Many times the dial tone is still on at the end of the wire due to the battery backups and generators from the central offices. The dial tones provided from field based electronics cabinets have batteries that will last aproximtly 8-16 hours based on amount of use. And many of those will have generators deployed as soon as possible. Essential services ( hospitals police, fire) will get priority. Unfourtunatly for customers on buired facilties (rather than aerial on poles) flooded areas will be more difficult to restore due to many of the service terminals on the ground under water.

I cant tell you the surprise many of our customers felt when they came to find a dual tone on a standard corded phone set was there when the there was no power from FPL for weeks.

Basic POTS (plain old telephone service) Florida is the least expensive utility service you can buy, and ask any person living alone how reassuring it is to have that connection to the outside world when all else is a shambles.

As an employee, I always recommend to keep a hardwired dial tone as part of your service, it is piggybacked on top of your dsl/uverse service. Internet and uverse wont work because your home power will prolly be off but at least you can make phone calls. Once the field electronics cabinets are restored VOIP calls can be made once power is restored to the home/business. Home based VOIP gateways can be placed on a small battery backup which can be locally purchased.

Calling the insurance company after your toof is blown off is one call you should hope you never have to make! Long after power out, cell towers out and cable is gone, the hard wired phone service has been the one utility that seems to work. For this reason, a land line is essential after a storm! Without one, see if your sarcastic comments help you out....

Did you never learn what SCOTUS long ago declared: “it is insightful, creative, controversial speech which merits the most protection, not just ignorantracist religious claptrap” ... well in so many words they did anyway.

Sad to see you mindless unAmerican third string drones taking orders from PBP’sRacist, fundamentalist, and gun nut defenders Clifton and Kelley who are destroying Constitutional free speech even on the weekends.

Your parents and teachers must be SO proud.

Try to get a job where you’re not such amoral corporate whooahs next time, OK?

Grow some self-esteem and a conscience... don’t just work for burgers and dope money.

I still get internet after hurricanes via dish and a generator, BFD. I still keep a landline though because how else could I be pestered day in and day out by calls for lying, tax-dodging church functions seeking donations, some brotherhood of state cops seeking donations, politicians seeking donations and almost every forking day this urgent but nothing wrong credit card discount plan... and yes, I am on the do not call registry.

@nativewooder - exactly - I tried for over a year to reason with the unreasonable Bell South/AT&T and got nowhere - that is until the finale day of the disconnect and then and only then did they say that they would give me the phone at what I had been paying for the line which was about $20 bucks a month - i throw the towel in $ said OK - that is until i got the bill - there was no discount and there was no record of my conversation according to HighLord AT&T.

NOPE - never ever again will i be hoodwinked by these folks - nope - don't need their service @ $32.50 per month for one land line...